Maybe I'm a fool. Maybe no one cares about island life, which is my primary fiction topic. Maybe everyone prefers to manufacture their own vision of what it is to live in a place where palm trees, beaches and the sounds of waves are a given. Yeah, they figure they know all about it. Margaritas on the beach, from a battery-powered blender. Jimmy Buffett music with a Jimmy Buffett message. All is well, no worries, no shoes, no shirt, no problem. No one wants the likes of me telling them that island life is still real life. That people are people, with maybe a local cultural twist. That the setting is merely a nod toward our humanity. Maybe it's a dumb idea to be writing stories about island reality. Who cares about the sunstruck women who want to keep overdevelopment away from their island homes? Or about the father who wants to keep the family land in the family? Or the young girl who sees the sea as her only future? It's very strange to be writing about simple island life in the midst of such a complicated American society and a complicated publishing world. Sometimes I think that no one cares about my concerns: How does the betrayed woman reconcile with the lover of her husband, or how do the religious man and the atheist remain friends? But somehow, the small number of people, of readers, who will care isn't all that important. I need to explore these things. If you're interested, come along.